In episode 36, we discuss our recent projects, past and upcoming WordCamp trips, the benefits and disadvantages of PayPal Express, making active blogging a part of our teams’ routine, separating team member’s responsibilities in projects, security updates, and more.

This episode was sponsored by WP Ninjas, the creators of Ninja Demo and the highly popular Ninja Forms plugin.

Show Notes:

Easy Digital Downloads v2.3

Sneak peek of Amazon S3 & Cloudfront Pro

Plugins, Automatic Updates, and the Average WordPress User (post by Morten Rand-Hendriksen)

Understanding WordPress Plugin Vulnerabilities (post by Sucuri)

Our recent blog posts:

Delicious Brains:

Tour of the WordPress database

Hosting WordPress Yourself Part 1 – Setting Up a Secure Virtual Server

WordPress Post GUIDs: Sometimes You Should Update Them

WordPress Multisite Database Tour

Easy Digital Downloads:

Integrating the FES Submission Form with Various Download Settings

Subscribing Customers to List Groups in MailChimp

The Importance of Having A Staging Site for Your E-Commerce Business

AffiliateWP:

Fundamentals to running a successful affiliate program

Sending affiliate emails with MailChimp

WooCommerce URL Coupons code for deliciousbrains.com

Ninja Forms 2.9 – Improving User Experience

Review us on iTunes

Transcript

INTRO: Welcome to Apply Filters, the podcast all about WordPress development. Now here’s your hosts, Pippin Williamson and Brad Touesnard.

PIPPIN: Welcome back to Apply Filters, Episode 36. Today we’re going to mostly talk about some things that we’ve been working on. We’ve got a couple of main subjects to hit on, as well as a little bit of a discussion on some recent security things related to plugin releases. Why don’t we just go ahead and jump right in? Brad, tell us what you’ve been working on.

BRAD: Yeah. Well, we’ve been working on our Amazon plugins, the release that’s coming up for Amazon S3 and CloudFront plugin.

PIPPIN: Is the release getting closer and closer?

BRAD: It is, but there are still lots of work to be done, and so we’re still probably a couple months out, it seems. I think I said that the last episode, so we’re not big on release dates, but we’re pushing forward. Definitely things are getting done, so that’s always good, right?

PIPPIN: Sure. Do you find that you set a release date once you kind of have a more definitive timeframe in mind?

BRAD: I tend not to because here’s the reason I don’t like release dates. If you set an arbitrary date, and it is arbitrary, you always hear about engineering projects going over budget and it was supposed to take one year; it takes three years. It’s because there are people that are setting the deadlines; it’s just arbitrary. They just pick a date — we want it by then — and it has nothing to do with how long it should take.

PIPPIN: Right.

BRAD: I find, with these kinds of projects, there are just so many unknowns that you don’t even know that you don’t know yet.

PIPPIN: I don’t 100% or disagree with you. I kind of like release dates, mostly just for the reason that I think it gives you a target, and maybe it’s because I’ve always worked better under pressure. I feel like once I have a deadline or whether it’s an arbitrary deadline or something like that set up, I tend to work better because suddenly there’s a goal in sight. It’s, by March 15, we’re going to have this done or we’re going to reassess.

BRAD: Yeah.

PIPPIN: But that might just be how I function.

BRAD: Well, it’s a good point, and it might be, in the future, better for my team to have a date to be working towards. I’m not sure. That might be something we experiment with in the future. What I’ve found for me personally is that it ends up being a quality issue. I will force — if it needs to be done by a certain date, I